Burn your TV in your yard;
Gather 'round it with your friends.
Warm your hands upon the fire,
And start again...
Ah, the immortal words of Toad the Wet Sprocket from a decade ago, and perhaps now is the time. All of the major TV networks are now experimenting with streaming their shows online (Fox · NBC · ABC · CBS). And the site OpenHulu let's you choose from shows across all of the networks with minimal interruptions. And if you want a specific episode, you can get it from Amazon UnBox or iTunes or even using BitTorrent. So why even have a TV these days?
Well, it's still good for watching shows and movies socially. But now that typical TV content is widely available on the computer, the TV is well on its way to becoming simply a big, general-purpose display for presenting content. The Xbox 360, Apple TV, and other such devices allow you to pump content from your computer to the TV. Will it be long before people give up their cable and satellite and go for an Internet-only strategy?
I wanted to be just such an early adopter. My DirecTV receiver failed after 8+ years of continuous service. Not a bad run. As I was thinking about my options, I took a look at my bill - almost $60/month. You can get a lot of entertainment online for $700+/year. In fact most of it is free. But ultimately I replaced the receiver with an identical used one I got off of eBay (because I still use UltimateTV; and no I don't want a Tivo, thankyouverymuch). Certain Luddite members of the household weren't quite ready for such a radical entertainment shift. :-)
Well, it's still good for watching shows and movies socially. But now that typical TV content is widely available on the computer, the TV is well on its way to becoming simply a big, general-purpose display for presenting content. The Xbox 360, Apple TV, and other such devices allow you to pump content from your computer to the TV. Will it be long before people give up their cable and satellite and go for an Internet-only strategy?
I wanted to be just such an early adopter. My DirecTV receiver failed after 8+ years of continuous service. Not a bad run. As I was thinking about my options, I took a look at my bill - almost $60/month. You can get a lot of entertainment online for $700+/year. In fact most of it is free. But ultimately I replaced the receiver with an identical used one I got off of eBay (because I still use UltimateTV; and no I don't want a Tivo, thankyouverymuch). Certain Luddite members of the household weren't quite ready for such a radical entertainment shift. :-)
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